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A Candle of Comfort 


By 

CHARLES NELSON PACE 

N\ 


“Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom.. 






THE ABINGDON PRESS 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 













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Copyright, 1923 , by 
CHARLES NELSON PACE 



Printed in the United States of America 

AUG 13 1923 

©Cl A752505 

'VvO I 


To my Father 
JAMES W. PACE 

IN APPRECIATION OF 
A LONG LIFE OF 

Christian Faithfulness 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

PAGB 

The Ministry of Consolation. 7 

SERMONS 

The Strain of Life. 17 

An Old Song. 28 

All Things for Good . 38 

The Problem of Suffering.. 45 

The Immortality of the Soul. 54 

A Place for You . 64 

A Continuous Easter. 72 













INTRODUCTION 


THE MINISTRY OF CONSOLATION 

Shakespeare once wrote, “How many 
things by season seasoned are!” Among the 
songs we sing there are some which express 
our thanksgiving and are suitable for har¬ 
vest-home festivals. There are the sweet 
songs of the Christmastide and the glorious 
anthems of Easter. But there are some 
hymns which express the mood of the heart 
no matter what the season may be. “Earth 
has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal,” is a 
message that may bring comfort to a broken 
heart whether the earth is covered with the 
white snows of winter or golden with sum¬ 
mer harvests. Sorrows do not wait for the 
seasons. 

How to get Heaven’s message into the 
earth is our perpetual problem. The love 
and comfort of God, the grace and power 
of Christ, the ministration of Divine Provi- 

7 



8 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


dence in human affairs, is the revelation 
which our human need constantly calls for. 

It was said of James G. Blaine that he 
had a remarkable memory of persons. He 
could recall names and faces after a lapse 
of many years. But even his memory was 
at times treacherous. It is said that if he 
met some one who claimed his friendship, 
he assumed the air of familiarity and al¬ 
lowed the conversation to drift on in the 
hope that it would reveal some clue to 
identity. If this did not appear, he was 
accustomed to ask in a confidential tone, 
“How’s the old trouble?” Almost invari¬ 
ably this revealed some statement which 
made it possible for him to place his friend, 
recalling his name and the circumstances of 
their meeting. It was a keen bit of psychol¬ 
ogy that the great statesman exhibited. 
“How is the old trouble?” Everybody has 
had trouble. In dealing with it we reveal 
our attitude toward life and expose the 
secret places of the heart. 

When James Tissot, the great French 
artist, was engaged in a series of paintings 
on the “Parisian Woman” and had gone to 
a great cathedral that in its sacred atmos¬ 
phere he might study the choir singer as a 


MINISTRY OF CONSOLATION 9 


model for one of the pictures of the series, 
something distinctly religious came into his 
life. He saw a vision of “Christ, the Con¬ 
soler.” He hurried from the place, shut him¬ 
self in his studio, and painted the vision 
which he had seen. Peasants sat amid the 
smoking embers and ruins of their home 
and bending over them was the form of the 
Son of God. When this picture was ex¬ 
hibited, the immediate interest and reverent 
enthusiasm with which it was accepted by 
the public gave him a new purpose in his 
work and furnished the incentive for him 
to paint that great series of pictures on the 
life of Christ. 

It is this vision of “Christ, the Consoler” 
which touches the heart of the world. We 
think of Jesus as a great teacher, and 
no ideals have ever been furnished by the 
religious teachers of the world which 
have been ethically finer than those which 
he furnished for the guidance of the 
race. We think of him as our Saviour 
from the guilt and power of sin, and the 
vision of the cross will always have power 
to arrest the attention of the world. His 
correct life—flawless and unsoiled by any 
contact with the world—forever remains as 


10 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


the perfect example for our humanity. But 
Jesus the Consoler, Jesus the Comforter, 
Jesus the Man of Sorrows and acquainted 
with grief, he who went wherever trouble 
was and dared to stand in the presence of 
death and say, “I am the resurrection and 
the life” and “Because I live, ye shall live 
also”—it is this Jesus that touches the 
heart of the world. There was a divine 
urgency in his life which moved him in the 
direction of every human need. 

We are in a world where sin has worked 
its havoc and left sorrow in its wake. How 
will men react to this experience? Some 
years ago Harold Begbie wrote his book on 
Twice Born Men. The subtitle of the book 
was “A Clinic in Regeneration.” One of 
the beneficial influences of that book was 
the fact that everyone who read it imme¬ 
diately set up his own “clinic in regenera¬ 
tion,” and out of the circle of his acquaint¬ 
ances and friendship and experience real¬ 
ized anew that the new birth was certainly 
operative. When men respond by faith to 
Jesus Christ as their Saviour, there is trans¬ 
formation. This is God’s method of deal¬ 
ing with sin. 

But what shall we say of sorrow ? Here, 


MINISTRY OF CONSOLATION n 


too, a clinic might be set up. Every man 
who has had acquaintance with the reactions 
of the human heart in the hour of affliction 
knows that God has a special message for 
those who suffer. Not always is that mes¬ 
sage received. Sometimes the reaction is 
unfavorable. “Who shall separate us from 
the love of God?” said Paul, and then 
among the forces which might probably 
separate a soul from God he inquires, “Shall 
tribulation?” The simple fact is that on 
more than one occasion tribulation has done 
this very thing. 

“My heart is as hard as stone,” said a 
father dry-eyed, rebellious, defiant when 
his son had suddenly met his death by 
drowning. No argument that I might use, 
no word of Scripture that I could quote, no 
prayers were able for a time to break the 
bitter rebellion of his soul. 

“No man cared for my soul,” cried David 
on a certain occasion. But there are those 
who have come to the sad hour when they 
have imagined that even God did not care. 
In loneliness, in grief, in a battle whose 
outcome was uncertain, amid unfair cir¬ 
cumstances, overburdened, misunderstood, 
they have lost their faith in God. Because 


12 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


God has not cared—they have not cared. 
One of the saddest lines in all literature is 
the sobbing lament of Mildred in Brown¬ 
ing’s “A Blot on the Scutcheon,”— 

“I—I was so young! . . . 

And I had no mother; 

God forgot me: so, I fell.” 

Well might we cry out, “If thou withdraw 
thyself from me, ah, whither can I go!” 

“Upon the white sea sand 
There sat a pilgrim band 
Telling the losses that their lives had known, 
While evening waned away 
From breezy cliff and bay, 

And the strong tides went out with weary moan. 
There were some who mourned their youth 
With a most tender ruth, 

For the brave hopes and memories ever green; 
And one upon the West 
Turned an eye that would not rest 
For the fair hills whereon its joys had been. 
Some talked of vanished gold, 

Some of proud honours told, 

Some spoke of friends who were their friends no 
more; 

And one of a green grave 
Far away beyond the wave, 

While he sits here so lonely on the shore. 

But when their tales were done, 

There spoke among them one, 


MINISTRY OF CONSOLATION 13 

A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free: 

‘Sad losses ye have met, 

But mine is sadder yet, 

For the believing heart has gone from me.’ 

‘Then, alas!’ those pilgrims said, 

‘For the living and the dead, 

For life’s deep shadows and the heavy cross; 
For the wrecks of land and sea; 

But, howe’er it came to thee, 

Thine, brother, is life’s last and sorest loss, 
For the believing heart has gone from thee— 
Ah, the believing heart has gone from thee.’ ” 

How can we be saved from such an irre¬ 
parable loss? Only by faith—faith in God, 
faith in the beneficence of his will, in what 
Robert Louis Stevenson called “the ultimate 
decency of things,” in the future, in im¬ 
mortality, in “a land that is fairer than day,” 
in heaven and the opportunity it will furnish 
to see those whom we have “loved long 
since and lost awhile.” It is “this hope that 
supports us still while here on earth we 
stay.” We are saved by it. We are com¬ 
forted through its ministry to our hearts. 
Time heals some hurts. Friends bring en¬ 
couragement by their sympathy. Flowers 
turn our thoughts from brooding. There 
are songs which lift the soul like a tide. 
But when the mind is confused and the 
soul in panic, when the future is dark with 


14 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


forebodings and we have lost our way, there 
is nothing that will restore sanity to our 
thinking and stability to our conduct like a 
mighty faith in Almighty God. We are de¬ 
stroyed by doubt. We are directed by affirma¬ 
tions. When questions arise about the good¬ 
ness of God and the misfortune and loss 
which we experience, when the soul flings 
out through pain-drawn lips the interroga¬ 
tion, “Why?” and there is no answer save 
the echo of our despairing call, we need 
faith. In such an hour the one who can re¬ 
store faith to the soul has rendered indeed a 
ministry of comfort. “I reckon that the suf¬ 
ferings of this present world are not worthy 
to be compared to the glory that shall be re¬ 
vealed in us,” wrote Paul, but there are 
some who have not been able to make this 
reckoning. It requires faith to survey all 
of the conflict of human experience and 
still sing a song of faith and lift a prayer of 
resignation. 

“There is no song within our glad heart singing 
But has an echo of some minor strain. 

There is no happy day its gladness bringing, 

But has one hour that’s filled with hidden pain. 
There is no rose so beautiful, so sweet 
But has a thorn amid its scented leaf, 


MINISTRY OF CONSOLATION 15 


There is no life so perfect, so complete 

But has its doubts, its cares, and bitter grief. 
Hope on, dear heart, although thy steps may 
falter. 

There is a God who watches over all. 

What though all things on earth must fade and 
alter? 

Have faith in Him who marks the sparrow’s 
fall. 

There is a heav’n so beautiful, so blest 

Where neither Death nor Sorrow enters in. 
Thy heavenly Father knoweth what is best. 

Have faith and leave thy little life to him.” 

During the World War friends of mine 
lost their son. He was in the Naval Re¬ 
serves at New London, Connecticut. They 
were called to his bedside before he passed 
away. He had come to his manhood by 
way of the family altar, the Sunday school 
and the church. At his bedside his loved 
ones waited with anxious hearts. “Have I 
been a good soldier ?” he said as he looked 
into his father’s face. And then before he 
went away he repeated the Lord’s Prayer, 
and the last words he whispered were 
“Glorious victory.” They brought his body 
to Duluth, where he was buried with mili¬ 
tary honors. At the service in the home 
many friends gathered to express their sym- 


16 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


pathy. In arranging the service the father 
made a request which many would think 
strange. He said to the pastor: “We are 
Christian people and have a Christian hope. 
We feel deeply the loss of this dear boy, 
but, because of his own expression of faith 
and confidence in God and the assurance 
which we have of seeing him again, I want 
you to ask the people who are assembled to 
unite with us in singing the doxology at 
the close of the service.” The minister 
read words of comfort from the Scriptures 
and spoke in appreciation of the Christian 
home that had laid this choice gift upon the 
altar of our nation. When the request was 
made for all to unite in singing “Praise 
God, from whom all blessings flow,” there 
was a response from every one. None 
thought it inappropriate. All felt it was a 
benediction. 

This is the Christian attitude toward sor¬ 
row. This is the triumph of faith over fear. 
This is the confidence and composure with 
which we may meet disaster and death when 
our lives are linked with the life of God. 

These pages contain the effort of one 
minister to speak at times the message of 
faith and hope and comfort. 


SERMONS 


THE STRAIN OF LIFE 

“He knoweth our frame.”—Psalm 103: 14. 

In a certain little city in the Middle 
West a man was engaged to move a certain 
residence to a new location and a new foun¬ 
dation. After looking it over he said, “Yes, 
I can do it.” When asked what furniture 
should be removed, what precaution taken, 
he replied the plates might be removed 
from the rail where they stood in the dining 
room—that was all. And that was all that 
was done. The house was lifted off its old 
foundation, where it had stood for a genera¬ 
tion, taken into the street, moved four 
blocks, raised up an embankment and a 
terrace and placed upon its new foundation 
—without a glass broken, without a crack 
in the plaster, without a picture askew. 
When this mechanic examined the house 
he found its posts and beams and sills were 

17 



18 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


of seasoned black walnut and it had been put 
together conscientiously. He knew its frame. 

When the Eads Bridge at Saint Louis 
was almost completed, the final girders 
were being laid and one failed to drop into 
its place by a fraction of an inch. The en¬ 
gineer measured it again, consulted his blue¬ 
prints, and finally said it was according to 
specifications and would have to fit. So 
he used several cars of ice on it. The con¬ 
traction of the metal took up the slight 
defect—and it dropped into its place. He 
knew its frame and knew what it was ex¬ 
pected to do. 

Over the Des Moines River in a certain 
village when the first bridge was built, my 
grandmother, a devout woman, was grieved 
as she found the construction men worked 
on Sunday. Each Sabbath day the hammer¬ 
ing and shouting went on and she said, 
“The bridge will never stand—they have 
dishonored God and his day/’ Folks smiled 
and whispered about an old woman’s fancy. 
But that spring when the floods came down 
the channel, it was swept from its piers and 
lost. Then they remembered what an old 
woman had said. There is a chance for a 
theological argument here. Perhaps my 


THE STRAIN OF LIFE 


19 


grandmother had never worked it out and 
perhaps she had. In her belief any group 
of men who dishonored the Sabbath would 
be guilty of dishonest work, and the dis¬ 
honest work was responsible for the ruin. 
The frame was defective and it did not 
stand in the time of stress. 

It is in the plan of God that life shall be 
stalwart, strong, substantial. We have 
thought of God as an agriculturist—and we 
see his strange works in nature from the 
slender branch of the willow that sends out 
its buds so early in the spring that each 
one must be supplied with a fur overcoat, 
to the last bit of thistle down that voyages 
in its parachute on the autumn winds. 

We have called him our shepherd—an 
Oriental figure of faithfulness to the flock 
we do not always appreciate in this country 
of blocked-out farms and barbed-wire 
fences. 

We have called God our king and seen 
him upon his throne in royal splendor, send¬ 
ing forth his armies and embassies and 
working his sovereign will. 

We have called him Father—and felt the 
intimacy of his love that gathers us in ten¬ 
derness and solicitude to his great heart. 



20 


A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


But let us think of him in terms of a 
mechanician—one who has laid the founda¬ 
tions of character in his providence, lifted 
about us the girders of his eternal truth, 
bound them together by the cross beams 
of his everlasting law, arched all life with 
the beautiful dome of his goodness. “He 
knoweth our frame.” 

We are built to bear. We are fashioned 
for utility. We are meant for service. God 
is not merely experimenting with us. He 
does not make one strong or another weak 
for the sake of variety. He does not play 
with the issues of heart break and blood. 

In a piece of fiction some years ago was a 
man who sought to get a secret from 
another, an enemy, whom he had taken 
prisoner. He stretched his fingers until 
every tendon and cord ached, he compelled 
him to play checkers with him through the 
night on a metal board while sitting on a 
chair so wired that every time he touched 
the board his body was filled with tingling 
pain. He tortured him to see how much 
he could stand and to force from his white 
lips an unwilling confession. 

God does not test our frame just to see 
how much we can stand—he knows. He 


THE STRAIN OF LIFE 


21 


knows the pressure we can bear. He re¬ 
members we are dust. He understands our 
weakness. But he also knows that testing 
time will surely come and therefore he has 
made us strong enough to be victorious. 

The centrifugal force of this planet as it 
sweeps through its orbit is such that it 
would fly into space and stagger into a col¬ 
lision with some other body, were it not for 
the centripetal force that holds it in eternal 
allegiance to the sun. The centrifugal 
power of its revolution would send houses 
flying to the moon if it were not for that 
strange power of gravitation that keeps 
them steady on their foundations. The 
pressure of the atmosphere on a single 
square inch of the body would crush us 
were it not for other pressure from every 
side and the pressure from within that 
makes us unconscious of the pressure of 
the air at any given spot. 

Do you not think that the God who has 
made these perfect adjustments of his law 
to the world, to all things physical, will also 
see that in spiritual things in which we are 
most like him we shall find his provisions 
sufficient ? 

“He knoweth our frame.” 


22 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


i. Because of this he has made it possible 
for us to take upon ourselves the strain of 
sin. 

Not that he is willing we shall—but he 
knows it is inevitable. 

No life but has felt the inroads of in¬ 
iquity. We know the mark, the break, the 
jar, the shock of a broken law. Indeed, if 
we will persist in inviting into our lives the 
thing that damages and destroys, God him¬ 
self cannot prevent our ruin. 

A few years ago the Campanile at Venice 
went crashing to ruin—the work of timber 
worms. Edwin Markham has written these 
lines: 

“In storied Venice, down whose rippling streets 
The stars go hurrying, and the white moon beats, 
Stood the great Bell Tower, fronting seas and 
skies— 

Fronting the ages—drawing all men’s eyes; 
Rooted like Teneriffe, aloft and proud, 

Taunting the lightning, tearing the flying cloud. 


“It marked the hours for Venice: all men said 
Time cannot reach to bow that lofty head: 

Time, that shall touch all else with ruin, must 
Forbear to make this shaft confess its dust; 

Yet all the while, in secret, without sound, 

The fat worms gnawed the timbers underground. 


THE STRAIN OF LIFE 


23 


‘‘The twisting worm, whose epoch is an hour, 
Caverned its way into the mighty tower; 

And suddenly it shook, it swayed, it broke, 

And fell in darkening thunder at one stroke. 

The strong shaft, with an angel on the crown 
Fell ruining—a thousand years went down l ” 1 

Nothing can prevent the overthrow of a 
life in which the subtle damage of sin con¬ 
tinues to work. It destroys the noblest, the 
proudest, the best! 

But in framing us God has given us the 
power of resistance. The very fact that in 
the presence of temptation we hesitate and 
fear, in doubtful choice we wait and won¬ 
der is a proof of his caution laid like a re¬ 
straining hand upon the soul. The instinct 
of danger, the remorse for guilt, the sorrow 
for fault, the inner protest against an alli¬ 
ance with evil—it is all a part of his at¬ 
tempt to recover us from wrong. 

It is wonderful how he can bring us back 
to moral health even when we have been 
partly damaged by sin. Indeed, all the pro¬ 
cesses of God are remedial. If the bark is 
knocked from a tree, nature begins at once 


1 “ Vermin in the Dark,” by Edwin Markham, from Shoes of 
Happiness, Doubleday, Page & Co., publishers. 



24 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


to repair the defect. If the body is cut, the 
wound is healed with a supply of new tis¬ 
sue. If an embankment gives way, it is 
soon sown with grass and flowers. God is 
constantly working to repair the damage of 
broken laws and heal the wounds of acci¬ 
dent. 

He has placed within us some of the 
power of self-recovery—and then because 
he knows our frame and knows these 
human helps are soon exhausted he has let 
down a shaft of light from a window in 
heaven that the wanderer may know he is 
expected home. He has left the home 
itself and come down where the darkness 
and the sin is and found the poor wrecked 
life in its mesh of habits and he has cut 
the cords asunder, found him in the pit of 
despair and lifted him out with the strong 
arm of his righteousness, and said, “Come 
home, my child.” 

2. Sorrow lays its strain on life. 

This we cannot escape. It is the portion- 
of every one upon the earth. Through the 
halls and corridors and rooms of this char¬ 
acter temple echoes at times the dirge, the 
chant of distress, the sob of anguish, as well 
as the minstrelsy of joy. In and out go 


THE STRAIN OF LIFE 


25 


thoughts garbed in black and emotions in 
the livery of despair, as well as the dancing 
sprites of our happier moods. Upon us 
rests the somber light of the pale moon and 
the mysterious stars with deep shadows 
lurking at every turn through which the 
black bats of evil dart with uneven flight as 
well as the sunny noons with beautiful but¬ 
terflies of fancy on the wing. 

What is the blackest hour in life? It is 
when there sweeps over us the conscious¬ 
ness that God has forgotten and forsaken 
us. Such an hour as Jesus felt in the death 
pangs of the cross when there was wrung 
from his white, pain-drawn lips the lament, 
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me?” Such an hour as those Galilean 
boatmen experienced when the wind beat 
against the dripping oarsmen as the little 
vessel wallowed in the storm and they 
plucked at the garments of Jesus, who slept 
serenely as though rocked in the arms of his 
Father, “Master, carest thou not that we 
perish ?” 

But have you ever been grateful for the 
providence of God that protected you when 
you did not know it ? Many times his grace 
has proven sufficient in the hour of need 


26 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


and distress—but have you ever thanked 
God for the sorrows that have never come 
into your life, the visitations of grief you 
have been spared, the tears you have es¬ 
caped? Why? Not because you were any 
better or more deserving than others, but 
because he knows your frame, and knowing 
it will not permit a thing to come into your 
experience that would disrupt your char¬ 
acter, spoil your peace, overthrow your 
faith, and ruin your life. 

As we stand under the strain of sin and 
sorrow we help another to stand. In a row 
of buildings some that are defective are 
helped to remain in place and are useful be¬ 
cause those around them are strong. Alone 
they might collapse. Together they keep 
their place. People are like that. This is 
why God has placed us in society, in groups, 
in families. Alone we would fail. Solitary 
we would succumb. But with neighbors and 
friends and associates around us we keep 
our place. He has planned that we keep 
our place. He has planned that we shall 
not only remain strong for our own sake, 
but that we shall help to bear the strain of 
other lives. O for the strength to help 
another bear life’s load! 


THE STRAIN OF LIFE 


27 


“O Master, let me walk with thee 
In lowly paths of service free; 

Tell me thy secret; help me bear 
The strain of toil, the fret of care.” 


AN OLD SONG 


“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
he leadeth me beside the still waters. He re- 
storeth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of 
righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though 
I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; 
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou 
preparest a table before me in the presence of 
mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; 
my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and 
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: 
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for¬ 
ever.”—Psalm 23. 

Old things are best. Their worth has 
stood the test of time. We look with won¬ 
der at innovations and inventions. We are 
surprised at new things which proclaim the 
genius of man. But ever and again we 
return to the sources of strength which our 
fathers knew. In times of trouble we 
want not entertainment but inspiration. 

There are many new songs. Popular airs 
lilt their way across the stage and disappear. 
When the heart is heavy we do not care for 

28 


AN OLD SONG 


29 


shallow sentiment set to music. Then it is 
we turn to something substantial like 
“Faith of our fathers’’ or “Love’s old sweet 
song.” Bishop McConnell tells of a regi¬ 
ment of Scotch Highlanders making ready 
one night to move up to front line trenches. 
When a song was suggested it was not 
“Brighten the corner where you are,” but 
“Oh God, our help in ages past.” 

Most people like to travel. We live in an 
interesting world. But “there is no place 
like home” and the old haunts have a charm 
all their own. Almost anyone can say, 
“How dear to my heart are the scenes of 
my childhood!” 

It is always an advantage to widen the 
circle of acquaintance. To know a great 
company of folks is a valuable experience. 
But when weary of crowds and streets and 
cities and all the problems of society, how 
good it is to meet an old friend—one who 
knows you, understands your moods, speaks 
a heartening word or listens in sympathetic 
silence to your confession of trouble or 
your recital of perplexity! 

So it is with the Bible. The whole mes¬ 
sage has meaning. We stand in awe before 
the majesty of the law. We listen with 


3 o A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


keen interest to the appeal of the prophet. 
We follow the crowds which wait on the 
ministry of our Master. We are convinced 
by the arguments of Paul. We bow before 
the splendor of the Apocalypse. We study 
the Bible as a whole. We read it through 
with profit. But some pages and passages 
are marked and thumbed and bear the evi¬ 
dence of repeated attention. 

Such a passage is the twenty-third psalm. 
It has no meaning for the frivolous or gay 
or trifling or shallow. It cannot be appre¬ 
ciated in youth as well as in maturity. Times 
come, however, when no scripture quite fits 
our need like this. Baffled and broken, de¬ 
feated and discouraged, with cherished 
plans frustrated, with that hope deferred 
which maketh the heart sick, we are in a 
position to know the sweet solace of these 
words: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall 
not want.” Bibles that are well used are 
sure to open easily to the twenty-third 
psalm. 

David the shepherd was musing one day 
about his flock, and at the time of prayer 
his poet’s soul leaped to the analogy of his 
own dependence upon Jehovah. What must 
this song have meant to the faith of ancient 


AN OLD SONG 


3 i 


Israel! What frequency of use in the 
Temple and in daily devotion! What a 
singer to have gathered up the emotions of 
the human heart and expressed them in such 
melodious measures that it has winged its 
way through the centuries. Men and women 
repeat it in the twentieth century with some¬ 
thing of the rapture the young poet felt 
when he conned his new made lines amid 
Jesse’s flocks on Judaean hills. 

People as sheep. 

This figure of speech appears more than 
once in the Scriptures. “We are the people 
of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” 

Sheep are dependent. They must be 
watched and guarded, led and fed. They 
have become domesticated. They are not 
competent to defend themselves against a 
foe. They would perish without assistance. 

Man is a creature of many relationships. 
He is dependent. A baby is helpless. Years 
pass before maturity can be claimed. The 
very dependence of the child upon the par¬ 
ents and the obligation of parents to care 
for the child through a long period of time 
would seem to be one of God’s ways of hold¬ 
ing the family together as a unit of society. 

We sometimes glory in our independ- 


32 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


ence. We make our declaration of it boast- 
ingly. We have heard much lately of self- 
determination. But that is something that 
may send our ship onto the rocks as well 
as into the harbor. Youth feels it must be 
free and thereby runs perilous risks. Life 
goes wrong without certain well-defined 
attachments. There are truths which abide. 
Some principles are stable. Greatness be¬ 
gins not when we announce our independ¬ 
ence and swagger in self-importance but 
when we learn how very dependent we are 
and what we can safely put our trust in. 
Even Jesus was dependent on the Heavenly 
Father and in surrender said, “Not my will 
but thine be done.” 

Then, too, sheep are easily led. Where 
one goes others follow. If the bell-wether 
finds a passage through the hedge the flock 
is soon on the other side. 

This is what the prophet sensed when he 
wrote, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” 
We do some things that are foolish and ex¬ 
travagant and evil simply because others do. 
We are powerfully influenced by public 
opinion. We are slaves of habit and cus¬ 
tom. We follow the style no matter how 
ridiculous it may be. In the dress we wear, 


AN OLD SONG 


33 


the books we read, the games we play, the 
vocabulary we use we proclaim the ease by 
which we are led. 

Gladstone said, “The genius of govern¬ 
ment is to make it hard to do wrong and 
easy to do right.” This takes into account 
this trait of human nature. 

A mob is a mass movement toward evil. 
Men have been swept along by a crowd and 
been participants in an offense for which 
the crowd was responsible when as individ¬ 
uals they would have shuddered at the 
thought of such an offense. A revival is 
the organization of this human impulse on 
a helpful and constructive basis. There 
may be some who, if they are ever swept 
into the Kingdom, must depend on some 
tidal wave of spiritual power that lifts a 
community. This tendency to move en 
masse is more apparent when evil is in¬ 
volved than when good is the objective. 

God as a Shepherd. 

It is good to think of him so. There are 
those who have speculated on his being as 
though he were some vague hypothesis. To 
some God is a bad dream to be thought of 
in the pinch of misfortune. In the opinion 
of others he is a Judge who examines the 


34 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


books that contain minute records of our 
deeds and misdeeds. He is a King in all the 
splendor of a divine royalty to others. The 
nearest approach in the Old Testament to a 
New-Testament interpretation is David’s 
analogy of the shepherd, a picture of tender¬ 
ness and solicitude and sacrificial love. 
Happy is he who with a personal and pres¬ 
ent faith can say, “The Lord is my Shep¬ 
herd.” 

The Oriental shepherd found certain tools 
useful in his work. He carried a stafif on 
which he at times leaned while watching the 
flock and whose crooked end was used to 
draw back some stray sheep that had en¬ 
dangered its life on rocky ledge or miry bog. 
The rod was a stout stick carried for dis¬ 
cipline and as a weapon against wild beasts. 
The shepherd’s pipe, a wind instrument on 
which he beguiled lonely hours, was played 
with certain strains at eventide and called 
the scattered flock together ere they were 
folded for the night. 

There is a suggestion in this old song of 
all these offices. 

God as our Shepherd extends to us his 
powerful help. “He restoreth my soul!” 
Constant renewal is needed by our inner 


AN OLD SONG 


35 


life. The strength required for each day, 
the expenditure of nervous energy in our 
work, the exhaustion felt from contact with 
the world, the toll of grief, would soon 
leave the soul depleted. Our vitality needs 
resuscitation. This is supplied in either a 
sensuous or spiritual way. Those who are 
pleasure mad and rush away to any new 
thrill offered their jaded souls are trying to 
find in material things that which can only 
be given by God. In the Sabbath day and 
its invitation to rest and worship, in the 
privilege of prayer, in the comfortable con¬ 
sciousness of pardon and peace divinely 
given, God restores the soul. 

There is a picture of Jesus as a shepherd 
painted by a modern artist. It visualizes 
for us the parable of the lost sheep. In 
the painting one cannot see the face of the 
shepherd. He has toiled all night hunting 
for the one missing sheep. Out on a moun¬ 
tain with precipitous walls he finds it on a 
perilous ledge caught in some brambles. 
The piteous cries have echoed through the 
canyon walls. A bird of prey in wheeling 
flight is near. The dawn of day is just 
beginning to touch the mountain rim when 
the shepherd finds the sheep that had wan- 


36 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 

dered away and was lost. He leans far 
over the canyon wall, endangering his own 
life to accomplish its rescue. In some such 
way a ministry of rescue and restoration is 
wrought by God to imperiled souls. 

Protection too is given. Amid dangers 
and in the presence of enemies provision is 
made for comfort and confidence. Even 
fear is taken away. “Though I walk through 
the valley of the shadow of death I will fear 
no evil.” The shadow of death! It is on 
everything—the golden curls of youth and 
the silver locks of age. We cannot escape 
it. But—only the shadow! We should not 
be afraid of a shadow! Perhaps when our 
time comes we may find death a relief. The 
pain of it will be removed through a Chris¬ 
tian faith. “Now we see not yet all things 
put under him. But we see Jesus, who was 
made a little lower than the angels for the 
suffering of death, crowned with glory and 
honor; that he by the grace of God should 
taste death for every man, . . that 

through death he might destroy him that 
had the power of death, that is, the devil ; 
and deliver them who through fear of death 
were all their lifetime subject to bondage” 
(Hebrews 2. 8, 9, 14, 15). In that hour of 


AN OLD SONG 


37 


passing the strengthening knowledge “Thou 
art with me” may be ours. 

Then at eventide we hear the call. Just 
as the shepherd played on his pipes and the 
grazing herd listened and answered to the 
summons and were led to the corral at 
the close of day, so God draws us to him¬ 
self. By strange presentiments, by intima¬ 
tions of immortality amid the meditations 
of old age, by hope that springs eternal in 
the human breast and never seems so ra¬ 
tional as when we hear the Master say, “Be¬ 
cause I live ye shall live also,” by impulses 
and emotions strangely given and comfort¬ 
ing in their influence, we feel the spell of 
that mystic music that calls us to another 
world. “Surely goodness and mercy shall 
follow me all the days of my life: and I will 
dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” 


ALL THINGS FOR GOOD 


“And we know that all things work together 
for good to them that love God, to them who are 
called according to his purpose.”—Romans 8. 28. 

In northern Minnesota is a lake which is 
said to be “bottomless.” By this is meant 
that no measuring line which they have used 
has been adequate to sound its depth. This 
verse has a similar quality. Who can fathom 
the significance of such a statement as this 
that Paul has made? There is no promise 
in the Bible so difficult to reconcile to the 
varying experiences of life. 

It is easy to believe that all things are 
working for our good when prosperity 
smiles upon us, when our friends are around 
us, when every plan we make is happily ma¬ 
tured and all our dreams come true. It is 

* 

not so easy to believe it when adversity 
smites us in the face and we meet sorrow 
and loss and misfortune. It takes faith and 
fortitude to sing— 


38 


ALL THINGS FOR GOOD 


39 


“Go, then, earthly fame and treasure! 

Come, disaster, scorn, and pain! 

In thy service, pain is pleasure; 

With thy favor, loss is gain. 

I have called thee, ‘Abba, Father;’ 

I have stayed my heart on thee: 

Storms may howl, and clouds may gather, 

All must work for good to me.” 

There are two propositions which will 
help us understand this verse. They con¬ 
stitute a premise from which we must pro¬ 
ceed. 

First, all experience is a means to an end, 
and that end is character. We talk about 
the school of experience, but the important 
thing is not the school and all its parapher¬ 
nalia of books and charts and lessons; the 
important thing is the pupil. We speak of 
the battle of life and are sometimes lost in 
the din and smoke and confusion of the con¬ 
flict when the great necessity is that the 
soldier shall carry on. “One thing is need¬ 
ful,” said Jesus to Martha. “I seek not 
yours but you,” wrote Paul, and it describes 
the attitude of God. “For what shall it 
profit a man, if he shall gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul?” In the hour 
we stand before him it is not fame or wealth 
or genius that counts, but character. 


40 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


Then we must remember too that God is 
a God of love. He has benevolent inten¬ 
tions. He seeks our advantage. He would 
not willfully harm us. Pagan gods were 
vindictive. They had passions like men and 
acted with hatred and revenge. But the 
highest revelation we have of God is that 
of the heavenly Father. There is no at¬ 
tribute we associate with him like love. 
When we think of his wisdom we despair. 
When we consider his power we tremble. 
When we contemplate his majesty we are 
filled with awe. But his love inspires us to 
approach him in confidence. “We love him 
because he first loved us.” 

If these two facts are kept in mind they 
will help us understand this baffling state¬ 
ment “that all things work together for 
good to them that love God.” They con¬ 
stitute an attitude of soul. When we ac¬ 
cept them we can look upon our misfor¬ 
tunes with sanity. Our circumstances may 
not be changed but our viewpoint is. We 
no longer regard ourselves as favorites of 
heaven who must be sheltered and pam¬ 
pered, but acknowledge the need of discip¬ 
line in the development of character and 
discover the meaning of it in God’s love. 


ALL THINGS FOR GOOD 41 


Then what? 

1. We will make the best of things. We 
will deliberately undertake to find the bene¬ 
fit each circumstance and experience holds 
for us. We will make conquest of our 
discouragement. We will take the optimistic 
view. 

A Nuremburg glass-cutter one day laid 
his spectacles on his bench and then inad¬ 
vertently dropped some acid on them. When 
he picked them up he found the acid had 
taken the glaze from the lens. He did not 
cry out, “My spectacles are ruined!” He 
was interested. He began certain experi¬ 
ments with acid and glass, and out of these 
came much of the decorative art upon our 
glassware. He made the best of his mis¬ 
fortune, and it worked ultimately for good. 

Pearls are made by the coming of some 
foreign substance into the shell of the mol- 
lusk. The little particle of grit irritates and 
annoys. Then a secretion is thrown around 
it. This hardens. Then more and more 
it is built up—and when the shell is opened 
we find a pearl. Many of the gems of 
character are formed by assuming the 
right attitude to some irritating thing that 
has been thrust into our lives. 


42 


A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


Chimes ring out from the noble tower of 
First Church, Duluth, Minnesota. When 
one stands beneath them they are overpow¬ 
ering in their clamor. Reverberations, 
overtones and undertones play about the 
place until one can scarcely distinguish the 
melody. But a short distance away these 
false notes have faded out and the melody 
peals forth with wondrous beauty. Some¬ 
times when trouble comes upon us it crashes 
in terrible discord, and a new vantage 
ground is necessary ere we can know its 
meaning or its message. 

If you believe that all things work to¬ 
gether for good in God’s plan for you, it 
will become the habit of your life to dis¬ 
cover the good in every event, the comfort 
in every sorrow, the bow of promise on 
every storm cloud, the advantage in every 
misfortune. 

2. Accepting the premise that all experi¬ 
ence may be disciplinary and that God is 
good, we can be assured of the perfect 
adaptation of God’s grace to our need. 
Whatever be the event that assails us from 
without, we may count on that reenforce¬ 
ment from within which shall enable us to 
meet it. There is an abundance of God's 


ALL THINGS FOR GOOD 43 


grace available for every need. We may 
make heavy drafts upon it. 

There are temptations which assail human 
life when safety and security can only come 
through the gift of God’s grace, the in¬ 
fusion of a divine spirit upon the heart, the 
reenforcement of our own desires to be 
good and faithful to such an extent that 
they will hold us through the testing time. 
“There hath no temptation taken you but 
such as is common to man: but God is 
faithful, who will not suffer you to be 
tempted above that ye are able; but will 
with the temptation also make a way to 
escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 
Jesus did not offer his disciples immunity 
from temptation, but a power with which to 
conquer it. 

There are sorrows in the world which 
only God’s grace can assuage. Death 
brings sadness because of separation, but 
there are sorrows infinitely worse than those 
which death imposes. As we grow in knowl¬ 
edge of the world’s tragedy and heart¬ 
break our amazement grows that there is 
not more death. 

At Barry au Bac, in northern France, is 
Hill 108, the scene of severe fighting dur- 


44 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


ing the war. It was taken and retaken. It 
was mined and undermined. It was held 
alternatingly by French and German forces. 
Here and there along its slopes may be 
found entrances to underground passages. 
On its crest one looks into a yawning crater 
where the entire top of the hill has been 
blown off. There are numerous cavities, their 
walls pock-marked by bursting shells. The 
whole hill churned to a dust heap that is 
filled with bits of shrapnel stands as a mute 
but eloquent witness of the terrible conflict. 
Even nature has seemed reluctant to try 
again to cover it with vegetation. Yet on 
the very top of this desolate waste on a 
summer day, three years after the war was 
ended, I found a poppy in full bloom. Some 
kindly wind had carried a seed and drop¬ 
ped it there. Amid all the ruin of the place 
it had thrust its tiny roots into the soil and 
sent its little stem aloft and at last spread 
its crimson petals. The red bloom seemed 
not only a testimony of the sacrifices of 
brave men who had died there, but a prom¬ 
ise of nature’s recovery of the hill to beauty, 
an assurance that God can send some mes¬ 
senger of good will and tenderness into the 
most tragic situation we may know. 


THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING 


“And lest I should be exalted above measure 
through the abundance of the revelations, there 
was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messen¬ 
ger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted 
above measure. For this thing I besought the 
Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And 
he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: 
for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my 
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmi¬ 
ties, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, 
in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am 
weak, then am I strong.”—2 Corinthians 12. 7 - 10 . 

We are in a world of suffering. None 
escape it. When we speak the language of 
pain all understand. Bishop William A. 
Quayle puts it this way i 1 

“I plucked a feather from an eagle’s wing, 

And thought to write a song of epic might, 
Whose deep-toned music should men’s dreams 
excite 

And plaudits—which as seas should swing 

1 Taken from The Blessed Life, p. 134. 

45 



46 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


In ever-widening billows, and should ring 

Like living laughter that should change the 
night 

And silence into joy and grace and light, 

And make its gloom and solitudes to sing. 

I wrote—and no one read my poem through. 

And then I found a feather from a mourning 
dove, 

Dropped from its wing in flying through a 
wood, 

And wrote a psalm of pain and pity, true 

To life, and tender with immortal love: 

And weary hearts both read and understood.” 

Paul suffered and developed under the 
experience a philosophy of suffering. We 
do not know what the “thorn in the flesh" 
was. Some suggest it was poor eyesight, 
others an impediment of speech, and still 
others offer scriptural references for a 
physical malady. We know Luke, a physi¬ 
cian, traveled with him as a companion in 
his arduous journeys. In the reaction of 
Paul to his thorn in the flesh we may dis¬ 
cover a process by which the soul comes to 
new strength, for this phrase has come to 
symbolize any painful experience to which 
we may become reconciled by God’s help. 
The steps in Paul’s development under suf¬ 
fering are suggested by four words. 


PROBLEM OF SUFFERING 47 


Repulsion. He besought the Lord to 
remove it. How natural! Was there ever 
a sorrow or pain or loss or reverse in which 
we did not at once complain, ‘‘Why should 
I be thus afflicted?” We shrink from the 
storm, even though its lightning may 
equalize the stratas of atmosphere, its wind 
sweep the community free of foul vapors, 
its rain cleanse the earth. We shrink from 
the surgeon’s knife though it removes 
an abnormal growth and saves a body 
from decay and death. W$ want to know 
“why”—the very thing that is veiled from 
us. 

It is advantageous to take our plaint to 
God. One purpose of prayer is to find out 
the facts as God knows them. Abraham 
besought him for Sodom and by importun¬ 
ity obtained the promise that the city would 
be spared if ten righteous inhabitants could 
be found. But Sodom was destroyed. 
There were not ten who qualified. This 
God knew. Abraham found it out. In the 
garden Jesus cried, “If it is possible”—but 
God did not take the cup away. Evidently, 
it was necessary. Paul “besought the Lord 
thrice that it might depart”—but God did 
not remove the thorn. He did something 


48 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


better. Rather than seek to understand our 
sorrow we should seek its utility. Instead 
of trying to learn its origin we should learn 
its discipline. When we find that the 
“thorn” has come to stay it is best to make 
friends with it. Whatever God means by 
it will be useful to learn and worth all it 
costs. 

Revelation. “My grace is sufficient for 
thee.” There is no emergency in life to 
which God cannot adjust his grace. If God 
does not do what we want, he will do some¬ 
thing that is better. We often ask in ignor¬ 
ance. He gives in wisdom. 

When Helen Keller was a child she was 
rebellious under her limitations. She could 
not see. She could not run and play as 
other children. Her little soul cried out in 
protest. One day standing on the porch 
amid the honeysuckles the deep prayer of 
her whole nature was “Give me light.” Just 
then she felt a step was approaching. She 
was gathered into an embrace and her lips 
were kissed. The teacher had come who 
led her from darkness to light, from ignor¬ 
ance to knowledge, from limitation to a 
liberal education, from obscurity to prom¬ 
inence. Her cry for light was answered 


PROBLEM OF SUFFERING 49 


not as she expected, but in the best way 
possible in the circumstances. 

In Habakkuk’s vision ‘‘God came from 
Teman and the Holy One from Mount 
Paran.” Wilderness places they were— 
and even in such places he is ready to flash 
out the splendor of his presence. 

The Israelites beheld in the fiery furnace 
the form of one like unto the Son of God, 
and since that hour the faithful have heard 
him say: 

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, 
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply, 

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design 
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.” 

Even as Saint John imprisoned on the 
barren, wind-swept isle of Patmos saw an 
apocalypse of eternal glory, so in our ex¬ 
tremities God lifts the veil ofttimes and we 
behold things unutterable. 

In a certain art gallery was a picture 
called “Cloudland.” It was at the end of a 
long room. It looked like a tumultuous 
mass of storm clouds in wild confusion. 
But approaching it, the visitor found the 
canvas was filled with cherub faces. Billow 
on billow of happy, smiling angelic faces 


50 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


where clouds were promised! So many of 
the storm clouds of life fade out as we ap¬ 
proach them, 

“And with the morn those angel faces smile 
Which we have loved long since, and lost awhile.” 

Reconciliation. When our rebellion dies 
out under God's revelation we are ready 
for this step in our development under suf¬ 
fering. “I will rather glory in my infirmities, 
that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” 
declared Paul. 

There is a rainbow in every storm cloud 
if we are only at the right angle to see it. 
In order that we may see the rainbow the 
sun must face the storm, and if we are to 
see the utility of suffering the whole prob¬ 
lem must be radiant with the sunlight of 
God’s will. We have known the deepest 
truth of life and touched the highest point 
of privilege when the heart says, “Thy will 
be done.” 

“My God knows best! Then tears may fall: 

In his great heart I find my rest; 

For he, my God, is over all; 

And he is love, and he knows best.” 

Sometimes disaster breaks on human life 


PROBLEM OF SUFFERING 51 


and it is met with brute strength and hurled 
off by self-assertion and sheer defiance. One 
cannot but admire such a spirit. Henley 
describes it: 

“In the fell clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced or cried aloud, 

Under the bludgeoning of chance 
My head is bloody but unbowed.” 

With more Christian courage Browning 
sings: 

“Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 

Be our joys three-parts pain! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge 
the throe!” 

But Paul is not merely resigned. He re¬ 
joices. “I take pleasure in infirmities, in 
reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, 
in distresses for Christ’s sake.” One is 
overawed by a faith so triumphant. It is 
as though an archangel were standing in 
the sun. 

Recuperation. “When I am weak then I 
am strong.” At last we learn that greatness 
of soul is not in independence but depend¬ 
ence. It is a great hour when we commit 


52 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


ourselves to God and depend on him. The 
eagle builds her nest amid frowning cliffs 
and raises her young on dangerous ledges, 
but there comes a time when the downy nest 
is destroyed and the eaglets are pushed off 
and made to try their wings. To more than 
one who has been tossed by trouble into 
midair has come the interesting discovery 
that the soul has wings. 

Great achievements have been wrought 
not by those who have been free from suf¬ 
fering but by those who have been strength¬ 
ened and purified by it. 

John Milton, blind and depending on 
that inner vision, sets out “to justify the 
ways of God to man” and pens his immortal 
poem, “Paradise Lost.” Bunyan, impris¬ 
oned in Bedford jail, is free in soul and 
travels from the Slough of Despond to the 
Delectable Mountains and gives the record 
of his journey in The Pilgrim s Progress. 
Tennyson grieving for his friend, Arthur 
Hallam, looks up, is comforted, and sings 
for all the world of sorrowing ones his “In 
Memoriam.” When George Matheson, the 
lover, was spurned because of his approach¬ 
ing blindness, it set him singing of a love 
that would not let him go. Even the Master 


PROBLEM OF SUFFERING 53 


went through this process. “Though he 
were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the 
things which he suffered.” In Gethsemane 
he cried out for the removal of this cup of 
suffering, was strengthened by angel min- 
istrants when he said, “Thy will be done,” 
and arose undaunted and “for the joy that 
was set before him endured the cross.” 
“The disciple is not above his master.” 


THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 


“If a man die, shall he live again? all the days 
of my appointed time will I wait, till my change 
come.”—Job 14. 14. 

A little child was given to walking in 
his sleep. One night his mother was 
aroused and hurrying to the stairs found 
him there. Gathering him into her arms 
and bringing him to normal consciousness 
with caresses and kisses, she asked him, 
“Where was my little darling going?” He 
replied, “I was going to see what’s inside 
of the dark.” The child’s answer stands 
for the expedition we shall all undertake 
some time. Charles Frohman, on the slop¬ 
ing decks of the Lusitania, talking of ap¬ 
proaching death, said: “Why be afraid of 
death? It is the most beautiful adventure 
of all.” 

The immortality of the soul is one of 
the noblest themes that has ever engaged 
the mind of man. In the presence of the 
grave the ever-recurrent question appears. 
“If a man die, shall he live again?” The 
answer to the question is affirmative. This 

54 


IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 55 


is the verdict of science, of the gospel, and 
the human heart. 

Science. We do not fear the voice of 
science to-day. We have heard some re¬ 
verberations of an old conflict between 
science and religion, but the unfriendliness 
of other days has passed. The truth does 
not contradict itself. Whether we seek it 
in the laboratory or in the upper room we 
shall find it all a part of a divine orderli¬ 
ness. Our concern should not be to bolster 
up some theory, but to find the truth. 

Immortality is in a realm where the facts 
cannot be dealt with in the same exactness 
as in the realm of matter. There have been 
those who have attempted the laboratory 
method. They claim wonderful results. 
This much is certain: science has not dis¬ 
proved immortality. Its findings in the 
physical universe furnish a basis for argu¬ 
ment in the spiritual. What it has taught us 
of the world we live in carries implications 
that are encouraging. Science has at least 
cast upon this subject the weight of proba¬ 
bility. Dr. Martineau once said: “Man does 
not believe in immortality because he has 
ever proved it, but he is ever trying to prove 
it because he cannot help believing it.” 


56 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


In the natural world we are told that 
matter is indestructible and that there is a 
constant conservation of energy. There 
may be the separation of substances, but 
every particle is preserved. Matter is not 
annihilated. Forces may be transferred to 
new channels, but they continue. Does it 
not seem reasonable that this law that ap¬ 
plies to inanimate nature shall govern con¬ 
sciousness and intelligence and personality? 

In nature confusion precedes order. 
Science and the Bible tell the same story. 
Chaos turns to cosmos. The void takes 
shape until it is ‘Very good." Now and 
then a stratum of the earth slips and men 
call it an earthquake, or the internal heat 
breaks out in volcanic eruption, but in spite 
of this the planet is habitable and beautiful. 
But in the moral realm we behold a chaotic 
condition. There are startling contrasts of 
sin and righteousness. Peaks of holiness 
rise alongside canyons of despair. Rippling 
laughter is interrupted by sobbing sorrow. 
Some go through life with never a care, 
others have nothing but care. It would 
seem at times that the guilty are never 
punished and the blameless never rewarded. 
What confusion and disorder! There must 


IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 57 


be a place where these inequalities are ad¬ 
justed, wrongs righted, incongruities recon¬ 
ciled, sins punished, and virtues rewarded. 
Otherwise creation is a blunder. 

Science also points out that the consum¬ 
mation of all evolutionary processes is man. 
There was a time when he became a “living 
soul.” He was given potentialities beyond 
other creatures. “Man is nature’s last and 
costliest work. Can it be that this finest 
product of nature, the result of intelligence 
and love, aimed at from the beginning and 
reached at a cost immeasurable, shall not be 
conserved in growing beauty and power?” 
Dr. Lyman Abbott has said: “Immortality 
is not so much a demonstrated fact as it is a 
necessary anticipation. Without it all evo¬ 
lution would be meaningless. It is incon¬ 
ceivable that God would spend years to 
make a Gladstone, a Lincoln, a Jefferson, a 
Shakespeare that he might have a body with 
which to fill a grave.” There is something 
more in store for us than oblivion. The 
intricate mechanism of a watch would 
scarcely be worth putting together if it 
could run only twenty-four hours. “He 
that made us with such large discourse look¬ 
ing before and after” certainly did not mean 


58 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


the grave should be a terminus. It is only 
a way station. 

Henry Drummond taught us that in the 
spiritual realm the same wheels turn as in 
the natural realm, only we do not see the 
wheels. If this is true, then what science 
has shown us of the material universe gives 
ground for the belief that in the spiritual 
universe we have a right to an affirmative 
answer to the question, “If a man die shall 
he live again?” 

Gospel . Here we pass from probabilities 
to certainties. In all ethnic religions there 
is a doctrine of immortality. This doctrine 
clears with the doctrine of God. It is not 
surprising, therefore, to find the fullest 
revelation of immortality in Christ. 

He taught it. When the Sadducees, who 
did not believe in the resurrection, came to 
him with a hypothetical case and asked for 
an opinion, he brought his answer to its 
climax in the words: “Have ye not read 
in the book of Moses, how in the bush God 
spake unto him, saying, I am the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of 
Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, 
but the God of the living.” (See Mark 12. 
J8-27.) These words possess no cogency 


IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 59 


or meaning unless these patriarchs were 
alive. 

In the transfiguration Moses and Elias 
appeared and talked with him. They were 
alive and conscious. They were recognized. 

He repeatedly asserted he would conquer 
death. His own resurrection is abundantly 
attested. It was a historical fact. If it had 
been a myth, it would have been exploded 
long ago. 

Robert Ingersoll stood at the grave of his 
brother and said: “Life is a narrow vale 
between the cold and barren peaks of two 
eternities. We strive in vain to look be¬ 
yond the heights. We call aloud and the 
only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. 
From the voiceless lips of the unreplying 
dead there comes no word; but in the night 
of death hope sees a star, and listening love 
can hear the rustle of an angel’s wing.” 

Christian faith believes that Jesus touched 
these mountains of eternity and descended 
into this vale of time. It believes that 
the voice that speaks is not our own voice 
but his: “I am the resurrection and the 
life.” The star of hope is the star of Beth¬ 
lehem. The rustle of an angel’s wing is 
from the sweeping pinions of the resurrec- 


6 o A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


tion angel who rolled away the stone and 
said: “He is not here. He is risen as he 
said.” 

Jesus knew that the hope of immortality 
was instinctive and inevitable. He ap¬ 
proved that fact. If we were not justified 
in such an expectation, he would have set 
us right. “If it were not so I would have 
told you.” “Because I live ye shall live 
also.” 

Human heart. Here resides this great and 
glorious expectation. “Hope springs eternal 
in the human breast,” but it is never so sane 
and reasonable as when illumined by trust 
in God. 

Wordsworth found intimations of im¬ 
mortality in the recollections of childhood. 
Most people find these in the longings of 
old age. He pictured the child coming into 
the world trailing clouds of glory. We 
think of the soul going out in clouds of 
triumph. 

How shall we explain this native im¬ 
pulse? God has put this conviction in our 
hearts. He has put it there because he 
means not to disappoint us but gratify us. 
He has made us hungry because he has 
bread enough and to spare. He has made us 


IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 61 


homesick because he has a place prepared 
for us. 

As death approaches this conviction in¬ 
creases. The reality of life beyond death 
intensifies. 

Paul said: “The time of my departure is 
at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith: 
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown 
of righteousness.” 

George Eliot exclaimed, “Oh, may I join 
the choir invisible.” 

Alfred Lord Tennyson, in his swan song 
declared his confidence: 

“I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
When I have crossed the bar.” 

Approaching death Victor Hugo said: 

“I feel in myself the future life. I am 
rising, I know, toward the sky. The sun¬ 
shine is over my head. Heaven lights me 
with the reflection of unknown worlds. 

“You say the soul is nothing but the re¬ 
sult of bodily powers; why, then, is my 
soul the more luminous when my bodily 
powers begin to fail? Winter is on my 
head and eternal spring is in my heart. 

“The nearer I approach the end, the 


62 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


plainer I hear around me the immortal 
symphonies of the worlds which invite me. 
It is marvelous, yet simple. It is a fairy 
tale, and it is a history. For half a century 
I have been writing my thoughts in prose, 
verse, history, philosophy, drama, romance, 
tradition, satire, ode, song—I have tried 
all. But I feel that I have not said the 
thousandth part of what is in me. When 
I go down to the grave I can say, like so 
many others, T have finished my day’s 
work,’ but I cannot say, T have finished my 
life.’ My day’s work will begin the next 
morning. The tomb is not a blind alley; it 
is a thoroughfare. It closes in the twilight 
to open with the dawn. I improve every 
hour because I love this world as my father- 
land. My work is only a beginning. My 
work is hardly above its foundation. I 
would be glad to see it mounting and 
mounting forever. The thirst for the in¬ 
finite proves infinity.” 

Robert Browning thus declared his whole¬ 
some philosophy: 

“Have you found your life distasteful? 

My life did and does smack sweet. 

Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? 

Mine I saved and hold complete. 


IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 63 


Do your joys with age diminish? 

When mine fail me I’ll complain. 

Must in death your daylight finish? 

My sun sets to rise again.” 

“Good morning, and how is John Quincy 
Adams this morning ?” said a Boston friend 
to the great statesman as he met him on the 
street. 

“Thank you,” replied the octogenarian. 
“John Quincy Adams himself is quite well, 
quite well, I thank you. But the house in 
which he lives at present is becoming dilapi¬ 
dated. It is tottering on its foundations. 
Time and seasons have nearly destroyed it. 
Its roof is pretty well worn out. Its walls 
are much shattered and it trembles with 
every wind. The old tenement is becoming 
almost uninhabitable and I think John 
Quincy Adams will have to move out of it 
soon. But he himself is quite well, quite 
well.” 

“If a man die, shall he live again?” 

In the light of testimony from science, 
from the gospel, and from the human heart 
let us change the interrogation to an affirma¬ 
tion. 


A PLACE FOR YOU 


“I go to prepare a place for you.”—John 
14. 2. 

“What is the place of your residence?” 
said some one to that world-wandering 
evangelist Bishop William Taylor. “I’m 
residing on the earth at present, but do not 
know how soon I shall change my resi¬ 
dence.” Once Wordsworth said, “I should 
like to visit Italy again before I move to 
another planet.” 

They spoke for all of us. Our lives are 

not stationarv. We attach ourselves to a 
* 

street and number, a city or town, and feel 
ourselves inseparable from that geographi¬ 
cal location. It is a beautiful world we 
live in and one should not be indifferent to 
all its moods of spring and summer, its en¬ 
veloping clouds or flooding sunshine, its 
music arising from mountain stream or 
forest, its noises of toiling humanity. We 
are a part of it. But some time we will 
change our residence. 

God evidently does not want us to think 

64 


A PLACE FOR YOU 


65 


morbidly of death. He would have us live 
buoyantly and gladly—not morbidly. When 
a sea voyage is begun there is so much to 
interest the passenger in the ship itself— 
the tugs that tow it into the open, the flutter 
of handkerchiefs, and the shower of good 
wishes, the smiles and tears. We set out 
to explore the ship—its intricate mechan¬ 
ism, the gayety and laughter of the deck. 
The voyage itself proves fascinating—the 
days of dreaming, the nights of rest, the 
everchanging sea with its long roll of bil¬ 
lows crested with lacelike loveliness; the 
path of light that shimmers on the surface 
when all is calm, the long lane of phosphor¬ 
escence that lies in the wake at night, the 
majesty of mighty waves that arise moun¬ 
tain-like and range on range plunge upon 
you while the ship struggles through un¬ 
waveringly. 

It is all so wonderful that we do not 
think much of the port to which we sail or 
the country for which we are booked until 
the voyage is about over. 

But now and then death comes near and 
the question strikes at our hearts— 
“Whither?” Hundreds of thousands of 
souls pass through the gate marked “Exit’’ 



66 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


—or is it “Entrance”? Is the grave a 
blind alley or thoroughfare ? Is this earthly 
existence one over which a funeral service 
writes “Finis,” or does it only jot down the 
final period of the “Preface,” and turn the 
page where the real romance of life begins? 

We believe there is something beyond. 
We do not explain it, apologize for it, argue 
about it, speculate upon it. It is a belief to be 
accepted, rejoiced in, affirmed and reaffirmed 
with gladness of heart. We believe it be¬ 
cause we believe in Jesus who said, “I go 
to prepare a place for you.” 

“A place”—we have pondered much on 
this. What kind of a place is it and where 
is it? One is surprised he did not say more 
about it. His main effort was to get heaven 
into men rather than men into heaven. Yet 
in our emphasis of the spiritual and univer¬ 
sal we ought not to overlook this promise 
of location. It is not only a condition but a 
country. He could not adequately describe 
it or show us the blue prints or make us 
comprehend its particulars. He evidently 
wanted us to be content with the fact that 
if he prepared it, that was all that could be 
desired. He said, “I am the way—follow 


A PLACE FOR YOU 


67 


Our fettered imaginations can only feebly 
anticipate that “sweet and blessed country, 
the home of God’s elect.” Its glory will 
surpass the sunrises of earth when that orb 
comes up with trembling shafts of light, 
through filmy curtains of clouds, and fills 
the eastern sky with opalescent splendors. 
Its expanses will exceed the wide stretches 
of prairies with their waving fields of grow¬ 
ing grain. Its grandeur can only be dimly 
suggested by up-leaping mountains that offer 
a footpath to the blue skies. Its loveliness 
will be as a garden more appealing than all 
earth’s flowers—from the dogtooth violet 
that peeps out in early spring in answer to 
the blue bird’s call to the riot of color that 
decorates country highways in the late sum¬ 
mer with cloth of gold. Its harmonies will 
be more alluring than all the sweet sym¬ 
phonies of earth from the gurgling laughter 
of babies to the union of all earth’s choirs 
in one “Hallelujah Chorus.” 

There is more signified in that word 
“place” than our present knowledge can 
appreciate. Did you ever notice that an 
increase of knowledge increases the mean¬ 
ing and beauty of any revelation of God? 
David said, “The heavens declare the glory 


68 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


of God.” That is forever true. But the 
heavens David knew were only those he 
could see with the naked eye as he watched 
the stars pass in stately processional while 
tending his father’s flocks by night. As¬ 
tronomy has given us an enlarged heaven. 
We have marked the path of planet and 
comet. We have charted the sky. The 
telescope has revealed points of illumination 
otherwise invisible. How much more with 
our increased knowledge do the heavens 
declare the glory of God! The Master said 
“God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son.” But the world of that 
time was in no sense populated as it is to¬ 
day. Civilization only fringed the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea. But the love of God was 
greater than that. It contemplated and in¬ 
cluded all the succeeding populations of the 
earth. It compasses the world of folks 
whereever they may be found in crowded 
cities or silent deserts, at firesides or tossed 
on high seas. As we increase our idea of 
the world we increase our conception of the 
love of God. 

“I go to prepare a place for you,” said 
Christ. We may not know where it is, 
but our increased knowledge of the uni- 


A PLACE FOR YOU 


69 


verse makes it necessary to think of it in 
larger terms than ever before. Once men 
thought the earth a plane and the sky a 
domelike covering over it, but now we know 
that with every revolution of the earth a 
right angle from the little area on which 
we stand sweeps like a great hand the com¬ 
plete circuit of the universe, “a place"— 
vast enough to receive all the worthies of 
the past and present and of time to come. 

The chief joy of heaven will not be the 
place but the people. It is a false notion 
that conditions alone improve us. Our hap¬ 
piness depends on what we are, not where 
we are. People who find no enjoyment in 
association with decent, right-living folks 
here on earth would not find enjoyment 
associating with them in heaven. Take sin 
and its baneful influence out of any com¬ 
munity and advertise to the world that it 
contains “nothing that defiles, that works 
abomination or makes a lie" and emigra¬ 
tion would set in that way at once. The 
people of a place are its charm. Happiness 
depends on personality more than environ¬ 
ment. 

But man is under the domination of that 
idea that changed conditions are necessary 


;o A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


to make him happy. So we have the pleasing 
fancy that in heaven all the things which 
are desirable will be preserved for us and 
all things undesirable removed. The Bible 
seems to encourage this view. Paul’s life 
was one of conflict, so he referred to that 
which awaited him as a “crown.” John on 
little lonesome Patmos declares,“There shall 
be no more sea.” The writer to the He¬ 
brews whose Jerusalem had been destroyed 
said, “Here we have no continuing city, but 
we seek one to come.” To penniless dis¬ 
ciples who had forsaken all to follow him 
Jesus promised “mansions.” 

When Wilberforce and Hall were ex¬ 
changing views on “What is heaven?” the 
former, who felt the malignity and cruelty 
of life, said “Love,” and the latter, who had 
spent the years in restless energy, said 
“Rest.” Each wanted what here they had 
been denied. 

A crippled boy in a wheeled chair was ob¬ 
served by a sympathetic lady who, pitying 
his helplessness, remarked to a bystander, 
“Poor fellow—what has he to look forward 
to?” The cripple overheard and turning 
with a smile said, pleasantly, “Wings some 
day.” 


A PLACE FOR YOU 


7i 


These immortal longings are placed 
within us to be satisfied. God made us 
hungry because he has bread enough and to 
spare. “I go to prepare a place for you,” 
said Jesus. So fondly has man dreamed of 
it that he has taken the dearest term of earth 
to describe it. I wish that the comfort and 
hope and reality of that place might rest 
upon all Christian people as they rest on one 
father’s heart, who, after more than eighty 
years of Christian living now sits in dark¬ 
ness of earth, but with spiritual outlook un¬ 
dimmed and with a voice that trembles with 
age but not with uncertainty, sings: 

“I will sing you a song of that beautiful land, 
The far away home of the soul, 

Where no storms ever beat on the glittering 
strand, 

While the years of eternity roll. 

O that home of the soul in my visions and 
dreams, 

Its bright, jasper walls I can see; 

Till I fancy but thinly the veil intervenes 
Between the fair city and me.” 


A CONTINUOUS EASTER 

“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those 
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on 
the right hand of God. Set your affections on 
things above, not on things on the earth.”—Colos- 
sians 3. 1-2. 

The Easter message is one of immortal 
hope. George Frederick Watts’ picture of 
“Hope’’ is a portrayal of hope against hope. 
A crouching figure has surmounted the 
earth which moves amid clouds, and with 
bandaged eyes leans listening over a harp 
to catch its music when all the strings have 
been broken save one. Christian hope takes 
the bandages from our vision and fears not 
to face the facts as they are. Looking above 
it sights a star in the sky, and when it bends 
over the harp of life it repairs the broken 
strings and sweeps them once more into 
melody. Easter hope is radiant beside a 
riven tomb. It bids earth rejoice. It pro¬ 
claims a triumph over death and the grave. 

Job asked, “If a man die, shall he live 
again?” Jesus said, “If it were not so I 

72 


A CONTINUOUS EASTER 73 


would have told you.” Two “ifs,” but at 
what extremes of thinking!—one a specu¬ 
lation, the other an assurance. The man of 
Uz gave utterance to a world-old cry. Jesus 
dismissed the problem as almost negligible. 
He was so sure about it that no argument 
was necessary. 

Shakespeare makes Hamlet speak con¬ 
cerning death and what lies beyond it. The 
gloomy Dane with suicidal intent is dis¬ 
tressed with perplexity and despair: 

“To be or not to be: that is the question.” 

In what a different world we find our¬ 
selves as we read Paul’s argument for im¬ 
mortality in the fifteenth chapter of First 
Corinthians! Here is fresh air and sun¬ 
shine for the soul. He cited the appear¬ 
ances of Jesus after death. He declares the 
tragic failure of the gospel if this immortal 
assurance be abandoned—“If Christ be not 
risen,” then “our preaching is vain,” “your 
faith also is vain,” “ye are found false wit¬ 
nesses,” “ye are yet in your sins,” and 
“they that are fallen asleep are perished.” 
To surrender belief in life eternal to the 
mind acquainted with Christian evidences 
is unthinkable. So we exult with the great 
apostle. “Oh death, where is thy sting? 


74 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be 
to God, which giveth us the victory through 
our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

The Easter message stands perpetually 
as the ministrant to our faith and hope. 

But if we accept this message, it carries 
certain implications. 

Our own age has been schooled in such 
suffering that we should be competent to 
understand Christ’s last week. The tragedy 
of the cross has been repeated. Before our 
eyes and as participants we have seen again 
the old contest between malignant cruelty 
and suffering love. Jesus was crucified 
outside the walls of Jerusalem, but in our 
time the stage was set on a continent, flam¬ 
ing cities were a part of the lurid scenery, 
the sullen roar of artillery the orchestral 
music, the actors were nations, the theme 
liberty, the audience all humanity. But it 
was the same old contest as formerly— 
might against right, formalism against faith, 
malice against meekness, wrong against 
reverence, hatred against hope, Caesar 
against Christ. We have been able to read 
the old story with modern experience. We 
have seen Pilates washing their hands and 
saying, “It wasn’t my fault.” We have 


A CONTINUOUS EASTER 75 


seen disciples who have betrayed and denied 
him and are repentant. Fatalists and fools 
unaware of what was going on diced for 
the prizes. There have been centurions 
moved by events who have cried out, 
“Surely . . . God!” There have been fol¬ 
lowers who have stood around in mute help¬ 
lessness or quaking fear. The mother-heart 
of our time has again been pierced by a 
sword, while there are Marys lamenting for 
lost loved ones—“I know not where they 
have laid him!” 

But for us as in the olden time a fatal 
Friday is followed by Easter, the black 
tragedy followed by the white glory of a 
new triumph. The world emerges from 
the suffering and cruelty of recent years to 
learn anew that its hope, its safety and its 
peace are all involved in the Easter mes¬ 
sage. If we have this hope in us we will 
purify ourselves, as John suggested. There 
is a law of the resurrection we must learn. 
“If we then be risen in Christ, seek those 
things which are above, where Christ sit- 
teth on the right hand of God. Set your 
affections on things above, not on things 
on the earth.” This alone will bring that 
good will among men on which peace amid 


76 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


groups or nations can be permanently built. 
This pleasure-mad and mammon-worship¬ 
ing age needs nothing so much as spiritual¬ 
mindedness. We must discover how to 
make the joyous, victorious, potent fact of 
Easter morning a continuous experience in 
the life of to-day. The event must be trans¬ 
lated into an activity. 

When we read the Scriptures we find 
that the word “death” is not only used to 
mean the dissolution of the physical, but also 
to denote the debasement of the spiritual. 
“Lazarus is dead” is a use of this idea in 
its physical sense. But when we are told 
“to be carnally minded is death,” and we 
may be “dead in trespasses and sins” we 
know it refers to the condition of the soul. 

Likewise there is a double meaning and 
use of the resurrection thought. We are 
familiar with it as it deals with life after 
death. “So also is the resurrection of the 
dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised 
in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it 
is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it 
is raised in power: it is sown a natural 
body; it is raised a spiritual body.” But we 
may have resurrection now. Christ means 
to call the soul from its spiritual death even 


A CONTINUOUS EASTER 77 


here. We grasp the lower thought of the 
resurrection, but miss the higher. We are 
like Martha, who said, “I know that he 
shall rise again in the resurrection at the 
last day.” But Jesus would supersede this 
idea with the law of his transforming 
power in human life and conduct, and carry 
us to a nobler conception of his mission. 
He speaks in the present tense. He offers a 
continuous Easter. “I am the resurrection 
and the life. . . . Whosoever liveth and 

believeth in me shall never die.” Paul un¬ 
derstood it. “God, who is rich in mercy, 
for his great love wherewith he loved us, 
even when we were dead in sins, hath 
quickened us together with Christ, and 
hath raised us up together, and made us sit 
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” 
(Eph. 2. 5-6). This is what the early 
church meant by frequent reference to the 
“power of his resurrection.” They felt it 
in their lives. 

What transformations such a conception 
would work! In our distress and dismay 
and depression there is the promise of im¬ 
mediate relief through the power and com¬ 
fort of God. The solvent for industrial 
ills and international complications is here. 



> ■*> > 


78 A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


If faith but take hold of this truth, we may 
indeed have a continuous Easter. Each 
morning we may feel the rapture of eternal 
life. Each day may be made glorious with 
spiritual power. 

Then—“seek those things which are 
above.” In all our choices there is a lower 
and a higher realm. Our work may be a 
selfish struggle for personal gain or a thing 
of service and stewardship. Which shall 
it be? Seek that which is above. Our 
thoughts may be base and sordid or they 
may wing their flight to the mountain peaks 
of lofty theme and sentiment. Our amuse¬ 
ments may be cheap and tawdry and at the 
expense of others or wholesome and happy, 
making all life a delicious and radiant ex¬ 
perience. Our friendships may be common 
or ennobling. The books we read may drag 
a slimy trail across the mind or be as a south 
wind and sun in their nurture of the soul. 
Even in religion we choose between that 
which is formal and that which is vital. 
Choices each day—and always the oppor¬ 
tunity of selecting the thing which is above. 
Will we live on the plain or plateau? Will 
we dwell on the moor or the mountain? 
Shall we be content with the dead level of 


A CONTINUOUS EASTER 79 


drudgery and despair or climb to the heights 
of noble aim and action? 

Every impulse to right living, every 
prompting to noble conduct, every call of 
conscience, every glowing ideal, every in¬ 
spiration to be better, every desire to arise 
to the full stature of strong symmetrical 
character, all that pulls us upward with 
persuasive power, emanates from the Spirit 
of the living Christ. Every attempt to 
apply his teachings to business, to politics, 
to education, to society is evidence of his 
presence among men. “This is life eternal 
to know thee the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom thou hast sent.” Seek him! 
Seek the things he is interested in! Seek 
to serve! Seek not with cold calculation 
and hesitant deliberation! Seek all that he 
offers with that eager expectancy which 
characterized the first Easter morning. Let 
this law of the resurrection be invoked to¬ 
day with an outrush of soul like the haste 
of Peter and John as they ran to the tomb 
at daybreak. Then the rapture of the first 
Easter will be carried into a continuous 
Easter. Then shall we experience a spiri¬ 
tual exultation full of joy and hope. Our 
chief concern will be the coming of the 


8o A CANDLE OF COMFORT 


Kingdom. We shall not look for it to 
break on us in some supernatural way, but 
labor for its triumph as the inevitable result 
of this divine fellowship and a noble conse¬ 
cration to the task Jesus has left us to per¬ 
form. 























I 










c 












